12 of the best alternative ski courses that put the fun back into learning

Want to improve your techique but don't fancy going back to the follow-the-leader formation favoured by ski schools? Here's our pick of the 12 best courses to put the fun back into learning.

Explore epic terrain

A two-week tour of the Canadian Rockies’ with Nonstop Ski and Snowboard

Among Nonstop’s monster menu of improver and instructor courses, its two-week ski and snowboard safaris, aimed at intermediate to expert riders, stand out as a canny way to make the most of expert tuition while gorging on a helping of western Canada’s premier peaks. During the 12 on-mountain days of each course – price includes accommodation, breakfast, lift passes and all transfers – guests get six days of pro coaching in all-mountain technique with seasoned guides.

There’s a choice of routes visiting either four or five resorts from Fernie, Kicking Horse, Sun Peaks,Banff, Red Mountain, Whistler and Revelstoke. You’ll be in a group no larger than 10 people, and with the chilled, social atmosphere the trip encourages you’re likely to have some new shredding buddies by the time you fly home too.

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Go with the girls

Women-specific performance coaching from Inspired to Ski in Morzine, France

Men. They can be kind of fun, but get a bunch of them together, stir in sport, opportunities to compete and quite possibly a lunchtime snifter and it can all get a bit, well, unladylike. The way some women learn best is on women-specific courses. Inspired to Ski has recognised this and its team in Morzine, France offers three-day courses designed to address the structural differences between women’s and men’s bodies, as well as, typically, a rather calmer atmosphere than you get in Alpha-centric groups.

Because there are five to six groups on each course, teaching can be tailored to target the needs and aspirations of everyone from blues cruisers to those confident all over the mountain. So far two three-day courses are scheduled for this January and one for March.

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Head off the beaten track

Break free from the groomed trails in Chamonix with McNab Snowboarding

Dubbed ‘the world’s leading backcountry snowboard and splitboard guide’ by freeride legend Jeremy Jones, former Olympic GB snowboarding coach Neil McNab set up his company in 1995 to turn intermediate and advanced boarders into powder-punishing big-mountain freeriders and skilled winter mountaineers.

His ever-evolving range of Chamonix-based courses includes various slackcountry – off-piste terrain easily accessed using lifts and short hikes – and true backcountry itineraries. The courses also take advantage of the new strides made in recent years in splitboard technology and the improved access this gives to spectacular descents such as the Grand Montets’ glacier run, drop-ins from the Aiguille du Midi and the epic Pas de Chèvre. Prices include expert guiding, often from McNab himself, all backcountry safety kit and use of a state-of-the-art splitboard.

Get a body makeover

An internationally qualified performance coach, one of the UK’s top pro freeskiers and our very own ski technique editor, Warren Smith leads the field in the combination of traditional technique with ski biomechanics and ski physiology. Fluid, ergonomic skiing on every kind of terrain is the goal, and Warren’s young, fun team applies tools including video analysis, biomechanical tests and foundation-building exercises to transform performance by optimising skier symmetry, ankle flex and thigh steering, and provides holistic, personalised feedback for each guest, in groups no larger than eight people.

The five-day courses, in Verbier and Cervinia, are suited to intermediate, advanced and expert skiers, and can include specific training for freeride and powder skiing, moguls and steeps. And for those looking to be pushed that bit harder, off-piste-focused ‘Supergroup’ itineraries stir steeps, tree skiing and couloirs into the mix.

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Lots of innovative techniques are used to help skiers improve their skills

Improve balance and mobility

Exercises from contemporary dance power innovative ski instruction from Ski!Projekt in Austria’s Au-Schoppernau

Guests start their ski days in the movement studio on three- or five-day courses that harness balance and kinetic techniques drawn from founder Michael Widmer-Willam’s unique pedigree as a ski instructor, movement coach and contemporary dancer. Suitable for skiers from newbie to expert, exercises learned in the two daily studio sessions help instructors determine each guest’s specific requirements and then tailor exercises to their needs.

Promoting economy of movement and the disciplines of ‘Body-Mind-Centering’ and the Feldenkrais method, this approach is particularly well-suited to skiers recovering from injuries. The improvements to spinal flexibility, joint mobility and balance after the studio sessions should bring benefits on and off the snow.

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New Generation instructors go to new heights when teaching freestyle lessons

Ramp up your park skills

Freestyle clinics offered by New Generation in 12 major French resorts help you up the jibbing ante

A rising star in the French and Swiss Alps since 1998, New Generation offers freestyle clinics as a fun and flexible way to give your park skills a leg-up in major resorts including Courchevel,La Plagne and Serre Chevalier. Taught by jibbing specialists to groups of no more than five, they’ll give you the technical tips and confidence to develop your skills, whatever your level, and discover your chosen resort’s best freestyle features.

And here’s a clever twist. New Generation guarantees sessions will run, with no minimum attendance levels, by changing the length of the session according to how many learners book. So if you’re on your tod, you get two hours of one-to-one instruction. If four more join, you’ve six full hours to play with.

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Earn your turns

Set off on a hut-to-hut safari in Austria’s Silvretta mountains with Piste to Powder

Are you a competent off-piste skier who’s ready for the next challenge? Ski touring tickle your fancy? Piste to Powder’s week-long courses provide two days’ ski touring training in St Anton before the main event – a four-day hut-to-hut tour zigzagging between Austria and Switzerland among the glaciers of the Silvretta Mountains.

You’ll be taught how to use touring kit, learn about mountain and avalanche safety and get to grips with mountaineering and off-piste skiing techniques – all the skills that will equip you to enjoy an orgy of untracked bowls and glacier runs. Nights on tour are spent in cosy serviced huts which, along with three nights’ accommodation in St Anton, guiding, breakfasts and dinners in the huts, are included in the price.

Nail a backflip

The friendly folk at Laax’s Freestyle Academy reckon that park and pipe progression is a whole lot easier without all the bumps and tumbles you pick up learning new tricks. We reckon they have a point. The Academy’s Indoor Base, Europe’s first freestyle hall, is a 1,200sqm facility housing trampolines, a ‘Snowflex’ practice slope with a box feature and a big air kicker with three jumps and a 15m airbag for a landing.

So it offers a safer way for skiers and snowboarders of all skill levels to gain the aerial awareness they need to flip, spin and land off jumps and features. Open to aspiring tricksters aged six and over, the Academy runs a selection of courses and camps, including three- and five-day snowboard or ski courses that combine mornings in the indoor base with coached sessions in Laax’s exceptional parks to put new skills into practice.

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Three-day courses cost from CHF268 for kids or CHF315 for adults on snowboards, CHF342 for both children and adults on skis; book at The Freestyle Academy.

Reach new heights

American mountain guide Miles Smart has climbed Yosemite’s legendary El Capitan more than 20 times, so few could be better qualified to help adventurous advanced skiers master the vertiginous steeps of gnarly La Grave. Offered by guided mountain adventure specialists Mountain Tracks, this five-day course will team Smart with no more than three guests to challenge and build their skills, nerve and stamina for some of the Alps’ most technically demanding terrain.

Days one and two will focus on skiing and climbing technique and psychological approach. Then it’s time for Smart’s outstanding knowledge of the mountain’s thrilling couloirs, daring drop-offs and long, wild descents – landscapes that have for decades magnetised top-drawer off-pisters from all over the world – to take centre stage. Smart will also run a second Steep Skiing Clinic later in the season in his hometown of Chamonix.

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Conquer the whole mountain

Hone all-terrain skills, then tick off an off-piste classic with Evolution 2 in Chamonix, France

Some 30 years young this winter, Evolution 2 offers a variety of off-piste itineraries in many of the French Alps’ most popular resorts. One of our favourites combines a condensed, half-day skills course for skiers and boarders with at least good red-run proficiency, and a guided, full-day descent of perhaps the most famous off-piste odyssey of them all, Chamonix’s fabled, 22km Vallée Blanche.

On day one instructors take groups of no more than six to the top of the Grands Montets, whose terrain shares many of the Vallée Blanche’s challenges, to polish freeride skills for the main event. Then, after a day off to rest the legs or practise new skills, guests get to gorge on the vaunted valley’s 2750m of vertical drop, with some of the Alps’ most spectacular landscapes – and some well-earned bragging rights – in their sights.

Banish bumps blues

Snoworks’ Bumps courses are perhaps the best way to grasp the distinctively different teaching concept that guides everything this near-30-year-old coaching outfit does. Its enthusiastic instructors teach the skills and drills of edge, pressure and rotary control for a constantly changing, ‘open’ environment, an approach that’s never more apt than when you’re hurtling through the nippy, tricky peaks, troughs and curves of a mogul field.

Suited to all skill levels and for groups of no more than eight, the sessions scour the colossal Espace Killy for each day’s challenges, often culminating in an attack on the megabumps that build up on Val d’Isere’s fabled Olympic downhill course La Face de Bellevarde.

One pure bumps five-day course is offered in April, but more half-day sessions will be laid on to meet demand throughout the season. And for those keen to get their moves sorted pre-holiday, Snoworks also offers four pre-season one-day courses between August and October in indoor snow centres around the UK.

Break your speed limit

Do you feel the need for speed? Whether your goal is becoming an instructor, competing or simply learning how to be super-efficient on your edges, Oxygène’s dynamic and experienced coaches from the alpine racing scene will help you carve chunks off your best-ever downhill time with gate slalom training. Over four or five days, guests on their ‘Ibex’ courses get to know the world-class Jean-Luc Crétier Slalom Race Piste in La Plagne, France, like the back of their, er, ski gloves.

And it’s that repetition, looping over ever-more familiar, predictable contours, that helps confident skiers push themselves and make rapid progress. Plus, the single location and tight skills focus mean the personalised coaching goes a long way, keeping prices surprisingly low. Video feedback, and a timed race at the end of the course are also part of the package. Courses are offered throughout the season.